Millionaire Congresswoman: Income Inequality is 'Existential Threat' to U.S.

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who is worth millions of dollars according to her congressional financial disclosure statement, says Congress needs to tackle income inequality because it “poses an existential threat to our nation and our way of life.”

On the House floor last Wednesday DeLauro said, “Every generation of leaders in this institution has faced their own time of testing. Whether it’s an economic panic, Great Depression, slavery, Jim Crow, Civil War, World War, Cold War. There are times when our country is confronted with a crisis that poses an existential threat to our nation and our way of life and Congress needs to stand up and act.”

“The test of our time is inequality,” DeLauro continued. “It’s not too much to say that inequality threatens the continued existence of the middle class in America and even the American Dream itself.”

“The question before us now is: are we going to continue to be the land of opportunity, social mobility and the nation that forged the largest middle class in human history during the 20th century, or are we going to become a nation of very few haves and millions of have-nots?”

According to her congressional financial disclosure statement for 2012, DeLauro is worth between $5 million and $25 million. (The form’s requirements allow members to state ranges of value for their assets rather than exact values.)